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Coconuts
The term coconut can refer to the entire coconut palm, the seed, or the fruit, which, botanically, is a drupe, not a nut. The spelling cocoanut is an archaic form of the word.3 The term is derived from the 16th-century Portuguese and Spanish word coco meaning "head" or "skull", from the three indentations on the coconut shell that resemble facial features.4 The coconut is known for its great versatility as seen in the many uses of its different parts and found throughout the tropics and subtropics.5 Coconuts are part of the daily diets of many people. Coconuts are different from any other fruits because they contain a large quantity of "water" and when immature they are known as tender-nuts or jelly-nuts and may be harvested for drinking. When mature, they still contain some water and can be used as seednuts or processed to give oil from the kernel, charcoal from the hard shell and coir from the fibrous husk. The endosperm is initially in its nuclear phase suspended within the coconut water. As development continues, cellular layers of endosperm deposit along the walls of the coconut, becoming the edible coconut "flesh".6 When dried, the coconut flesh is calledcopra. The oil and milk derived from it are commonly used in cooking and frying; coconut oil is also widely used in soaps and cosmetics. The clear liquid coconut water within is potable. The husks and leaves can be used as material to make a variety of products for furnishing and decorating. The coconut also has cultural and religious significance in many societies that use it.[citation needed] Description Plant Cocos nucifera is a large palm, growing up to 30 m (98 ft) tall, with pinnate leaves 4–6 m (13–20 ft) long, and pinnae 60–90 cm long; old leaves break away cleanly, leaving the trunk smooth. Coconuts are generally classified into two general types: tall and dwarf.7 On fertile soil, a tall coconut palm tree can yield up to 75 fruits per year, but more often yields less than 30, mainly due to poor cultural practices.8910 Given proper care and growing conditions, coconut palms produce their first fruit in six to ten years, taking 15 – 20 years to reach peak production.11 Fruit Botanically, the coconut fruit is a drupe, not a true nut.12 Like other fruits, it has three layers: the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp. The exocarp and mesocarp make up the "husk" of the coconut. Coconuts sold in the shops of nontropical countries often have had the exocarp (outermost layer) removed. The mesocarp is composed of a fiber, called coir, which has many traditional and commercial uses. The shell has threegermination pores (micropyles) or "eyes" that are clearly visible on its outside surface once the husk is removed. A full-sized coconut weighs about 1.44 kg (3.2 lb). It takes around 6,000 full-grown coconuts to produce a tonne of copra.13 Roots Unlike some other plants, the palm tree has neither a tap root nor root hairs, but has a fibrous root system.14 The coconut palm root system15 consists of an abundance of thin roots that grow outward from the plant near the surface. Only a few of the roots penetrate deep into the soil for stability. The type of root system is known as fibrous or adventitious, and is a characteristic of grass species. Other types of large trees produce a single downward-growing tap root with a number of feeder roots growing from it. Coconut palms continue to produce roots from the base of the stem throughout its life. The number of roots produced depends on the age of the tree and the environment, with more than 3,600 roots possible on a tree that's 60 to 70 years old. Roots are usually less than about 3 inches in diameter and uniformly thick from the tree trunk to the root tip. Inflorescence The palm produces both the female and male flowers on the same inflorescence; thus, the palm is monoecious.14 Other sources use the term polygamomonoecious.16 The female flower is much larger than the male flower. Flowering occurs continuously. Coconut palms are believed to be largely cross-pollinated, although some[which?] dwarf varieties are self-pollinating. Origin, domestication, and dispersal Origin The origin of the plant is the subject of debate.262728 O.F. Cook was one of the earliest modern researchers to draw conclusions about the location of origin of Cocos nucifera based on its current-day worldwide distribution.29 He hypothesized that the coconut originated in the Americas, based on his belief that American coconut populations predated European contact and because he considered pan-tropical distribution by ocean currents improbable. Thor Heyerdahl later used this hypothesis of the American origin of the coconut to support his theory that the Pacific Islanders originated in South America.30 However, more evidence exists for an Indo-Pacific origin either aroundMelanesia and Malesia or the Indian Ocean.262728 The oldest fossils known of the modern coconut dating from the Eocene period from around 37 to 55 million years ago were found in Australia and India, but older palm fossils such as some of nipa fruit have been found in the Americas.28 A species with strawberry-sized nuts (Cocos zeylanica) lived in New Zealand in the Miocene. Since 1978, the work on tracing the probable origin and dispersal of Cocos nucifera31 has only recently been augmented by a publication on the germination rate of the coconut seednut 32 and another on the importance of the coral atoll ecosystem.33 Briefly, the coconut originated in the coral atoll ecosystem — without human intervention — and required a thick husk and slow germination to survive and disperse. Domestication Coconuts could not reach inland locations without human intervention (to carry seednuts, plant seedlings, etc.) and it was early germination on the palm (vivipary) that was important,34 rather than increasing the number or size of the edible parts of a fruit that was already large enough. Human cultivation of the coconut selected, not for larger size, but for thinner husks and increased volume of endosperm, the solid “meat” or liquid “water” that provides the fruit its food value. Although these modifications for domestication would reduce the fruit’s ability to float, this ability would be irrelevant to a cultivated population. Among modern C. nucifera, two major types or variants: a thick-husked, angular fruit and a thin-husked, spherical fruit with a higher proportion of endosperm reflect a trend of cultivation in C. nucifera: the first coconuts were of the niu kafa type, with thick husks to protect the seed, an angular, highly ridged shape to promote buoyancy during ocean dispersal, and a pointed base that allowed fruits to dig into the sand, preventing them from being washed away during germination on a new island. As early human communities began to harvest coconuts for eating and planting, they (perhaps unintentionally) selected for a larger endosperm to husk ratio and a broader, spherical base, which rendered the fruit useful as a cup or bowl, thus creating the niu vai type. The decreased buoyancy and increased fragility of this spherical, thin-husked fruit would not matter for a species that had started to be dispersed by humans and grown in plantations. Harries’ adoption of the Polynesian terms niu kafa and niu vai has now passed into general scientific discourse, and his hypothesis is generally accepted.3536 Variants of C. nucifera are also categorized as Tall (var. typica) or Dwarf (var. nana).37 The two groups are genetically distinct, with the Dwarf variety showing a greater degree of artificial selection for ornamental traits and for early germination and fruiting.3138 The Tall variety is outcrossing while Dwarf palms are incrossing, which has led to a much greater degree of genetic diversity within the Tall group. It is believed that the Dwarf subgroup mutated from the Tall group under human selection pressure.39 Dispersal It is often stated that coconuts can travel 110 days, or 3,000 miles (4,800 km), by sea and still be able to germinate.40 This figure has been questioned based on the extremely small sample size that forms the basis of the paper that makes this claim.41 Thor Heyerdahlprovides an alternative, and much shorter, estimate based on his first-hand experience crossing the Pacific Ocean on the raft Kon-Tiki: "The nuts we had in baskets on deck remained edible and capable of germinating the whole way to Polynesia. But we had laid about half among the special provisions below deck, with the waves washing around them. Every single one of these was ruined by the sea water. And no coconut can float over the sea faster than a balsa raft moves with the wind behind it."30 He also notes that several of the nuts began to germinate by the time they had been ten weeks at sea, precluding an unassisted journey of 100 days or more. However, it is more than likely that the coconut variety Heyerdahl chose for his long sea voyage was of the large, fleshy, spherical niu vai type, which Harries observed to have a significantly shorter germination type and worse buoyancy than the uncultivated niu kafa type.31 Therefore, Heyerdahl’s observations cannot be considered conclusive when it comes to determining the independent dispersal ability of the uncultivated coconut. Drift models based on wind and ocean currents have shown that coconuts could not have drifted across the Pacific unaided.41 This provides some circumstantial evidence thatAustronesian peoples carried coconuts across the ocean and that they could not have dispersed worldwide without human agency. More recently, genomic analysis of cultivated coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) has shed light on the movements of Austronesian peoples. By examining 10 microsatellite loci, researchers found two genetically distinct subpopulations of coconut—one originating in the Indian Ocean, the other in the Pacific Ocean. However, admixture, the transfer of genetic material, evidently occurred between the two populations. Given that coconuts are ideally suited for ocean dispersal, individuals from one population possibly could have floated to the other. However, the locations of the admixture events are limited to Madagascar and coastal east Africa, and exclude the Seychelles. This pattern coincides with the known trade routes of Austronesian sailors. Additionally, a genetically distinct subpopulation of coconut on the Pacific coast of Latin America has undergone a genetic bottleneck resulting from a founder effect; however, its ancestral population is the Pacific coconut. This, together with their use of the South American sweet potato, suggests that Austronesian peoples may have sailed as far east as the Americas.42 Category:God Wants Me To Forgive Them Category:Lessons From The Sock Drawer Category:Food